Multitale
by The Lord of Silence
Summary: The story of Undertale is an interesting one, but it is only one of many. I know all of them, and I know the story that intertwines them. Because you see, sometimes one story isn't content to stay inside of its own story, and so it spills out into others. This is the story of every story. (Was called Echoes of Dreams)
1. Echoes and Dreams

**Author's Note: This is an Undertale Multiverse piece centred around the character of Dream and my character of Echo. It's set in a self-contained version of the Multiverse I call Multitale, which I created in order to let me just write whatever I want to with various Multiverse characters, without having to work within the guide lines created by other artists. I'm sure my characters do exist in the regular Multiverse as well, just in a different capacity. This is probably just a one shot but I may build on it with a few more chapters in the future depending on feedback. There's a version on my blog with some illustrations and a bit of a more detailed explanation of Echo if you want to check that out via my Profile Page. Now, please or enjoy my little creation!**

 **The Lord of Silence**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own Undertale, or Ink!Sans, or Dream!Sans or Nightmare!Sans. I only claim ownership over Echo!Sans.**

The footsteps were quiet, well worn bindings muffling the clack of exposed bones on the stone tiles. It came out as a series of soft thuds, each coming at slow, steady intervals. The walker saw no reason to hurry himself; the master of this house hadn't visited it in a long time, and wasn't about to do so again in a hurry.

Echo took the time to let his glazed eyes wander over his surroundings. It wasn't uncommon for people to assume that he was blind, due to the pale blue haze that covered his enlarged eyes, accompanied by the way he would sometimes stare off into the distance. This wasn't actually the case though. Echo saw perfectly fine, it was just that he saw things in a different light to those around him, both figuratively and literally.

The mute skeleton stopped in front of a pair of high wooden double doors. The one on the left was a warm hazel with bright gold coating its frame, while the door on the right was a midnight blue with running the length of its edge. Echo's calm stare became just a little sorrowful at the lighter patch of wood on the left side. The gold and platinum cloud symbol had been ripped torn from its place on the door. Where it was Echo wasn't sure. Perhaps it had been destroyed. The right door still bore its symbol of a silver crescent moon, but the timber of the door itself had been viciously mauled, deep gouges coating the dark blue surface.

Skeletons didn't need to breathe, yet Echo still took a deep breath before pushing the double doors open. Beyond them he gazed upon a vast courtyard, exposed to the cool reflected light that bathed the surrounding landscape. Monsters of most universes spent their repeated lives wishing desperately to see the star patterned sky over Echo's head, but the sky blue robbed wander payed it no heed. Instead, his focus was rooted to the far end of courtyard.

There, coated now in shadows, was a stone platform that Echo knew had once supported a great tree. Echo had never seen the tree with his own eyes, having been born several years too late, but he had seen the spectacular tapestry they still kept in the temple in Skytale. Of course, they had no idea what the treasure they were keeping was, they had all forgotten long ago.

Now the tree was replaced with a diminutive stone figure, hand outstretched to some unseen individual. As Echo approached he began to find the features of the statue more and more uncanny. It was like looking into a mirror of rock, albeit one dressed rather differently. The stone folds of a cloak flew out behind the figure, captured in a wind that was no longer present.

Echo had been expecting something, but he had to admit that he hadn't expected this. He stopped directly in front of the statue, gazing directly into its eye-sockets. He looked sad. No, sad was too mild a word. Distraught, yes, that was better. Water stains ran from the corners of the statues sockets.

Echo blinked in surprise, before focusing as hard as he could on the statue's chest. It was faint, but it was there. A soul. It was weak, weak with grief and the insidious magic that had coiled around it for the last two decades.

Carefully-almost reverently-Echo laid a bandage wrapped palm on the statue's forehead. Though the night stayed silent, a voice spoke calmly to the statue, deep and cool. **"Dream,"** it said, tone firm, **"it's time to wake up."**

Echo let the feeling of warmth in his own chest bubble upwards, filling him to the brim. He forced the feeling forwards, down his humerus, through his ulna and radius, into his fingers and finally he poured the feeling into the statue. A faint blue glow surrounded the sorrowful stone figure, growing rapidly brighter, and brighter.

Echo's gaze was intense as he funnelled more magic into this one action than he had into anything before. His knees began to tremble, and it as no surprise to him that when he finally drew his hand away, he collapsed to the ground, panting for breath he did not need.

He never took his eyes off the stone statue. The glow was now so bright that he had to squint, covering its entire body. _"Come on, come on, please,"_ thought Echo, _"accept it. We need you!"_

The skeleton's eyes light up, the smile hidden by the scarf wrapped around his lower jaw, as the magic went from blue, to a warm yellow. There was the sound of stone cracking, as the magic flared so bright that Echo had no choice but to look away.

As the intense flare subsided, Echo lowered the arm he'd been using to protect his vision. The figure before him was no longer made of stone. Instead he was real magic blood and bone again. The cloak, now affected by gravity, drifted down to hang behind him, flapping slightly in the soft night breeze. Two blank eye-sockets were filled with a pair of warm white orbs that stared at Echo uncomprehendingly.

 **"Hello,"** said Echo, voice reverberating around the old structure in silence.

"h-hello?" replied the other, voice shaky. Upon seeing that Echo was still on his knees after falling over, he quickly offered him a hand up. The same hand he'd been holding outstretched for the last twenty years. Echo's smile became brighter, as he gladly took the orange gloved hand. It hauled him to his feet with a strength that seemed to contradict the appearance of its owner. The other skeleton was shorter than Echo by about half a head, with a particularly round and naturally cheery looking skull.

"what happened?" he asked. "where, where is my brother?"

Echo's smile froze, then fell away. **"That's something we'd all like to know,"** he admitted. **"It would be much easier to stop him anyone could find him."**

"stop him?"

 **"Don't you remember?"**

"...yes." The shorter skeleton looked forlornly at the paved ground. "so, he really did it, did he?" he asked, head tilting up lock Echo's gaze, "he went to war with everyone."

 **"Yes, that's why I've come to bring you back,"** said Echo, expression adamant. **"Dream, we need your help. I've been hunting for you or some clue as to your fate for the past ten years. Ink is, not doing too well."**

"Ink? he's been fighting?" asked Dream, a little incredulous.

 **"It sounds like you've underestimated him,"** reprimanded Echo, a weak smile rustling his scarf. **"Ink the only thing that's kept the Multiverse holding together these past years."**

"but, Nightmare, what has he done?" asked Dream, clasping both hands together in front of his chest.

 **"It's a long story,"** said Echo. **"I'll bring you up to speed, but we can't do it here. He may be able to sense what I've done."**

Echo turned to open a portal, but stopped when a gloved hand grasped his arm. "wait!" called Dream. "this, this is our home, isn't it?" he asked, looking around him at the long untouched courtyard. "what did he, what did he do to..." His voice trailed off as his gaze fell upon the bare stone patch where he'd just been frozen.

"no..."

 **"I'm sorry. As far as I can make out, he ripped the Tree up and burned it,"** explained Echo. **"There's no proof of course but, there's no reason to suppose otherwise. Please,"** he continued, putting a hand on Dream's shoulder, **"we can't stay here."**

"r-right," stammered Dream, voice weak. Echo nodded in satisfaction as he turned away to face the tear in reality he'd made. As the pair stepped through, Echo caught a faint whisper from his companion. "i'm so sorry."


	2. Error

The air was filled with the steady hum of static. It resonated across a sheet of bare white. There was no sky, no apparent horizon, no clear line to distinguish between the ground and the air above it. There were also no shadows; a steady pristine light illuminated everything, seeming to emanate from every direction at once.

The white vista was empty, or very nearly so. There was one person, sitting with his knees pulled up and his head pointed straight down. His clothes were black and his body was black, but if looked at the edges of him, he seemed to radiate brilliant blue from his clothes and red from his body. It was almost like an aura, except the light didn't fade or mix with the air around him. Quite simply, he was outlined.

There was one part of him that was not black, and that was his fingers. These were red up until the last joint, at which point they became bright yellow. The yellow, red and blue tints and outlines on his person were to be honest rather ugly shades, like the default colours in an old version of Paint. His fingers were thin, though not especially long. This was because they were bones, and this person a skeleton.

And yet, despite being a literal skeleton, he was not dead. His shoulder rose and fell with a rhythmic pulse that could have been mistaken for breathing. But skeletons do not breathe. The curled up figure was sobbing, quietly. Each sniff was a little weaker than the last one, and so each time his shoulders moved less. Eventually his body became totally still, and after some dull contemplation of the perfectly white ground beneath him, the skeleton looked up.

Now, a normal skeleton would look a little unsettling if it were moving about on its own. This skeleton however, was anything but normal. His left eye socket was swollen to an immense size; about an extra half larger than it ought to have been. In contrast his right socket was an extra half smaller. On top of this both eye sockets seemed to show the inside of this skeleton's skull as being the same red as his fingers. And yet there were no shadows cast inside of his sockets. Set inside of these fluorescent red holes were two eyes that were as disproportionate as the sockets they filled. The right eye was shrunken, with no iris or pupil, and instead of white it was bright yellow. The left eye was enlarged so as to match the huge socket it occupied, having yellow 'whites', a bright red iris and a blue pupil. Bizarrely there was also a small black dot in the centre of this blue pupil, like a second, even more precise one. Over the top of these strange eyes was a pair of circular, red framed glasses.

To match his weird eyes the skeleton had an equally weird mouth, it being bright yellow. Blue streaks also ran from the bottom of his eyes sockets, down to the bottom of his jaw. They looked disturbingly like tears, but they were not.

The skeleton looked around the white abyss before him, unable to discern any kind of movement, shadow or change in colour. The lack of shadows was actually rather disorienting.

"heLLo?" called the skeleton, and then jumped as his own voice seemed to hitch and squeal slightly on its way out. He gave a cough to clear his throat and tried again. "HEllo?" once again his voice squealed unpleasantly.

He was surprised when somebody answered him. "Hello," they said, voice brimming with apparent excitement. "This is so cool!" they exclaimed.

"whAt iS?" asked the skeleton, voice still screeching as he looked around in vain for the person he was talking to.

"You," came the reply, as if the skeleton should already have known that.

"oh. UM, thAnkS, I guESs."

"Of course," continued what was apparently a ghost of some kind, "we still need iron out a few bugs: you've got a few, errors, here and there."

"No kidding," cut in a second voice, laughing. "He looks like he was drawn by a 1st grader."

"hEY!" snapped the skeleton, a little insulted.

"What's his name?" asked a third voice.

The first voice 'hmmed' for a few moments. "How about Error?" teased the second voice.

"Actually, that's not bad," agreed the first voice. "All then buddy, your name is Error."

"THanKs?" replied the newly christened skeleton. "buT uh, whERE Am i?"

"Welcome to the Anti-Void!" said yet another voice. Or, was it one of the first three? Error wasn't sure.

"This is a place beyond the beyond," explained a voice. "Technically it shouldn't be able to exist, but we manage anyway."

A great ripple of chuckles filled the air around Error, prompting him to glance around frantically. "HoW mANy of yOU GuYs are THERe?" he asked.

"No idea," said one.

"No one ever bothers to count," said another.

"WhaT ARe You?"

"Oh, just people."

"Bored people," cut in one.

"Yeah, really bored. But you can give us something fun to do Error!"

"whAT?"

"We have some things to teach you," explained what Error thought might be the first voice. "We'll teach you how the Multiverse works, and what you need to do in it."

"thAt soUNdS, OK, I gueSS," said Error. Then he remembered something. "I waS upSEt bEForE WE staRTED TAlkinG. wHAt waS I UPSEt aBOut?"

"You're mistaken," said the first voice. "You didn't exist before you started talking to us. This is where you were born Error; we're your family."

"huH. thATs nIcE," said Error, smiling.

"Now get comfy," said a new voice. "We have a lot to teach you."

"And then," said another voice, anticipation heady in their tones, "Then we can really begin."

Error pulled back the hood of his jumper, which had been half cast over his strange face. He then crossed his legs and put his hands in his lap. "ALl rIghT," he said, unbothered by the way his voice warbled, "I'M lIstEnING."


	3. In which Frisk gets into trouble

**I do not own any of the characters who appear in this chapter; they are all interpretations of character created either by various fanartists/writers or by Toby Fox himself.**

Frisk swung their short legs idly over the side of the small wooden boat, watching as the dark river water moved steadily by. They smiled as the boats shrouded helmsman (or woman) let out a cheerful "tra la la!"

"You know," began the Riverperson, "somewhere it's Wednesday. So be careful," they added, with a serious inclination of the head. Frisk nodded earnestly, though really they had no idea what the Riverperson meant. They said strange things like this all the time, so it didn't bother them very much.

Then, then the boat stopped. Frisk looked up, expecting to see the bank, but there was only the river. They had stopped part way through. Frisk frowned; that wasn't supposed to happen. They turned to ask the Riverperson if something was the matter, but to their surprise they'd gone. Frisk was alone on the boat, being carried very slowly by the current towards the landing at Hotland.

Frisk scrambled to their feet and called, but there was no answer. Even after several minutes of slow drifting there was no sight or sound of anyone, or anything. The twelve year old child could not understand what had gone wrong. Never before had anything even remotely like this happened. Actually, Sans disappeared sometimes. No, that was different; he always walked round a corner or something before vanishing. The Riverperson on the other hand hadn't moved at all before disappearing.

Frisk hadn't realised how far it actually was from the Snowdin jetty to the Hotland jetty. Every other time they'd been sped along by the Riverperson, and when they'd walked they'd always been preoccupied with the things on their way. Now however, there was nothing to do except wait for the boat to drift its way to its destination.

As Frisk waited they pondered the Riverperson's words: "somewhere it's Wednesday, so be careful." Had that actually meant something? If so what did it mean? The "be careful part" was obvious enough, Frisk thought, but why be careful of Wednesday? Moreover, how does the Riverperson know that it's Wednesday somewhere? Today was a Saturday, so even in a different time zone it couldn't be Wednesday. Eventually Frisk gave up trying to solve the weird riddle, and settled for lying on their back and looking at the gem studded roof as it went slowly past.

It took almost an hour for the boat to reach Hotland, so that by the time it did, Frisk was more than happy to go ashore and stretch their legs. People would be wondering where they'd got to, Undyne would be confused that Alphys hadn't received her letter yet. Frisk briefly thought of LOADING back to their last SAVE. No; nothing like this had ever happened before. The small human was curious as to what would happen next.

Their worn brown boots made footsteps that seemed to echo back louder than before. Everything was utterly silent. As Frisk reached Alphys's lab they felt a nasty feeling begin to take root in the pit of their stomach. The door was not closed like it usually was. Instead it had been smashed in and had flung across the room. It lay in the middle of the white chamber, half caved in on itself by whatever had impacted it.

The lab itself had been trashed. Alphys's papers were scattered everywhere, her computer he fallen onto the floor and the huge monitor she used for watching Frisk lay screen down on the floor. Black scorch marks were present at several points around the room. There was also a strange splatter of what looked like paint across one wall. It was in a veritable rainbow of different colours: red, blue, orange, green, purple, pink and yellow in various shades coated the rear wall of the lab. They had marked out a partial silhouette, but the picture of whatever had been hit by the paint was too vague for Frisk to make a guess as to what it was, other than humanoid.

Frisk looked upstairs and found similar results: everything had been turned over or knocked from its proper place. The large poster of MewMew was gone, replaced instead by a smear of dark ashes, indicating that it had caught fire at some point. The box bed was missing as well, and Frisk wondered where it had gone, until they found it smashed into a corner of the room, half unfolded as a result of the impact. Loose springs and bits of stuffing littered the floor around it.

What had happened here was to some extent obvious: there had been a fight. But a fight between who? Had Alphys been involved somehow, and if so what had happened to her? Frisk was relieved when, try as they might, they could find no trace of monster dust anywhere in the lab. So there was good hope that no one had been killed at least. But why would the monsters have been fighting each other?

Frisk decided that the best way to find out was to keep looking. They left the lab by the far door and found on the other side that the fight had not been confined to the lab. There were more scorch marks, more paint and more smashed and broken objects. What was different out here though, was that there were also bones.

Several large clumps of bones protruded from the ground at intervals. They didn't look like the bones Papyrus and Sans conjured though: these were black, fading to red towards the top. They also seemed to be, outlined in red, for want of a better description. Cautiously, Frisk touched one. The bone flickered in response, bits of it disappearing, only to reappear in the wrong place, disappear again and then finally reappear back at their starting point. Startled, Frisk pulled their hand away. As soon as contact was broken the bones stopped flickering.

Frisk followed the route through Hotland, over steam vents and past now inactive lasers, and everywhere they went they could find traces of the battle that must have been fought while they were on the ferry. Frisk was unnerved, but their curiosity was still solidly getting the better of their discomfort. And besides, what was the harm? They could always LOAD if something went really wrong. As they stepped out of the elevator onto the second floor, they realised that something had already gone very wrong.

A long smudged streak of grey covered the ground before the lift. Frisk looked at in confusion for a few moments before putting their hands up to their mouth with a gasp. The streak was some poor monster's dust. Judging from where the streak seemed to emanate, Frisk guessed it had been the little fire elemental Heats Flamesman. It was shocking and a little upsetting, but Frisk had seen plenty of monsters turned to dust before, so they weren't about to lose it over just this one.

As it turned out it was not just this one. As Frisk went on they found several other piles and streaks of dust. They were infrequent, and most made it look as if the dead monsters had been running away from the fight. It was possible, Frisk supposed, that their deaths had been an accident, collateral damage during the fight between whoever it had been.

When Frisk finally came in sight of MTT resort they froze, and stared with wide eyes. Thus far things had been smashed, knocked over and in most cases broken. The resort had also been broken-the doors were smashed and a huge cracked ran up one side of the building-but that wasn't what frightened Frisk. It was the fact that the top half of it was missing.

It hadn't been blown up, or smashed off, it just wasn't there. In its place was a massive white square that gave off a faint glow. Frisk couldn't tell if the square was in front of the top half of the resort, in the middle, or in the back. They tried to walk around the building and look at the square from a different angle, but it remained a single flat square, no matter from what side Frisk looked. It defied the laws of common sense; it was like a two-dimensional object in a three dimensional plane. It felt utterly impossible, and after looking at it a while Frisk realised they were getting a headache and had to look away.

Now feeling decidedly worried, Frisk nervously stuck their head through the shattered glass doors of MTT resort. The fountain had been utterly destroyed, smashed by several huge impacts, and it looked as if a big chunk of the Mettaton statue had been incinerated somehow. There was no dust here, which made Frisk feel a bit better, but there were plenty of burn marks, and a few splatters of paint here and there.

The freaky part was that the ceiling was gone, replaced by a huge white rectangle. It was like looking through a glass roof into an empty void of white nothingness. Frisk gulped, but edged their way across the room and towards the double doors that led to the CORE. These had also been broken apart, and on the other side Frisk found yet more signs of battle.

Surely the fight couldn't have gone much further than this could it? Frisk wondered. The entrance to the CORE was in a similar state of ruin to Hotland. Various pieces of piping and cables had been torn or blasted from their places. Sparks spluttered impotently, providing sporadic and overall poor lighting. The overhead lighting system seemed to have been destroyed, so the only light Frisk had to see by was the sparks that jumped occasionally off the ends of various broken cables. Other than that and a few dull red emergency lights it was totally dark inside the CORE.

Frisk could feel their nerve rapidly draining away. This place was freaky in the dark, and all the events up until now were so utterly wrong. They paused in the middle of a crossroads, trying to collect themselves.

Then a great static screeched tore through the air, prompting Frisk to cover their ears and squeeze their eyes tight shut. A bright light played on their face, and seeing it through their eyelids Frisk forced themself to open their eyes and look.

A thick black line that tapered to points at the top and bottom had appeared in the air a few steps away. It was like an invisible sheet had been hanging across the path, and someone had torn a raggedy hole through it. An unnatural breeze buffeted Frisk's face, and still the screech continued to tear mercilessly at their ears.

Then Frisk could see a shape, deep inside the darkness. It was a figure, a human child like them but all grey and washed out, like a photo with the saturation turned all the way down. The 'not human' was moving forwards without walking, sweeping towards Frisk through the black tear in space. Its eyes widened into huge black, circular pits, and its mouth opened into a wide, black, gaping maw.

That did it; enough was enough. Frisk might come back and try again later, but for now this was all getting much too out of hand. They frantically reached for the LOAD power and to their relief the entire world-terrible approaching figure included-vanished. Frisk waited in the darkness for the options to continue or RESET to appear.

What was that thing? What had happened while they were on the ferry? Where had everybody who wasn't turned to dust gone? Had they all vanished like the Riverperson? And, more pressing at this moment, why weren't the options to continue or RESET appearing?

Frisk looked behind them to see if for whatever reason they were facing the wrong way, but behind them was even more black darkness. Frisk waited and waited and waited, but the two options were not forthcoming. Something had gone wrong with their LOAD.

Now Frisk was truly afraid. No, not just afraid they were terrified. This was worse than Flowey, worse by several whole orders of magnitude. It was worse because Frisk knew nothing at all about what was going wrong. They were completely out of the loop. There had been times when Frisk would have killed for something different (quite literally), but now that something really different was happening they didn't like it one bit. This was too different for their tastes, too different and too unstable.

They called for help, louder than they ever had before.

…

And somebody came.

"hey kid," said a voice from behind Frisk, "what's someone like you doing wandering around in the Void?"

Frisk spun round, and when the saw the face of the newcomer they felt relief rush through them. It didn't matter that he was dressed in green and had four metal tentacles protruding from his back. Frisk ran forwards and through their arms around Sans' neck.

"woah!" exclaimed Sans, hurriedly grabbing hold of Frisk and prying them loose. "personal space there buddy."

Frisk mumbled sorry, but beamed that they were so pleased to see Sans.

"oh, I see what's going," he said. "i'm not who you think i am little guy." Frisk looked at the apparently not-Sans questioningly. "i know i might look like him, but i'm not him."

Frisk asked him who he was then.

"call me Anti-Virus," he said.

Frisk pointed out that that was a strange name.

"yes well, i suppose i'm a strange guy," sighed Anti-Virus. "anyway, you shouldn't be here; it's not safe for ordinary people to go wandering around the Void."

Frisk asked what the Void was.

"i guess you could say it's a sort of in-between place," shrugged Anti-Virus, a little vaguely. "anyway, no more talking; i've gotta get you home before you attract unwanted attention." He waved one of his hands and series of green screens appeared in front of him. They had an array of complex symbols and numbers on them that Frisk couldn't understand. "hold still for a sec," instructed Anti-Virus.

Obediently Frisk stood still as one of Anti-Virus's robot tentacles hovered in front of them. A bright green light glowed from the end of it, causing Frisk to squint a bit more than usual. After a few seconds the tentacle withdrew. Anti-Virus looked at his screens and frowned. "hmm, didn't expect it to look like that," he muttered. He shrugged. "oh well," he said, giving Frisk a nervous smile, "it's the first time i've ever done this with a human, so it's bound to be a bit different for you guys. now let's see where you come from," he murmured, as a list appeared on one of his screens and started to scroll down.

Frisk could only make out that the names on the list all said Alpha and then a number, but apart from that they didn't understand it at all. The list came to a sudden stop and one name flashed brightly, much to Anti-Virus's satisfaction. Alpha-12 it said. "there we go," grinned Anti-Virus.

He waved his hand again and the green screens disappeared, being replaced by a glowing keyboard. The skeleton quickly typed something in that Frisk couldn't make out and the keyboard also disappeared. Anti-Virus looked expectantly at a spot just behind Frisk, which prompted them to turn round. As they did so, a bright crack appeared in the air, and widened to show a space beyond.

To Frisk's surprise they could see a snow covered path stretching away from them, with dark fir trees lining either side of it. Away in the distance they could just about see a familiar looking 'gate thingy', and beyond that what looked as if it might be a sentry station. They were looking out into Snowdin Forest.

"that look about right to you?" asked Anti-Virus. Frisk turned around and nodded, smiling. "great," said, Anti-Virus, returning the smile a little awkwardly. "well, you just head on through there, and whatever it is that you did to get here, don't do it again, all right?"

Frisk nodded earnestly, before thanking Anti-Virus and hurrying through the tear and into Snowdin Forest. They felt the snow crunch under their feet, and took a deep breath of the chilly air. They turned back to wave goodbye to Anti-Virus, but the tear had already vanished. Behind them Frisk could see a path leading off towards the tightly sealed purple doors that marked the entrance to the Ruins.

Eagerly, Frisk ran on ahead. After their frightening experience they wanted nothing more than to meet up with Sans and listen to some of his terrible jokes. They stopped as they reached the 'gate thingy' and listened for the sound footsteps behind them. They grinned as they heard the sound of footsteps approaching, and turned around prematurely.

What they saw however was not what they had been hoping to see. In fact, it was one of the things they never wanted to see again. Green clothes with a single yellow stripe across the middle, dark brown hair cut to shoulder, rosy cheeks that framed a cheerful smile under a pair of red eyes that glinted like a pair of rubies. Frisk's eyes widened with horror as they saw Chara standing in the snow before them, perfectly physical, perfectly real.

Chara however had a rather different expression on their face. She looked confused, looking Frisk up and down as if they were supposed to be someone else. Actually, now that Frisk looked properly, Chara didn't look quite right. For one thing, they were much taller than Frisk remembered, standing about half a head shorter than Papyrus. And unlike last time Frisk had seen them, they had a clearly identifiable gender. Chara was female. She was also dressed a little differently too; rather than a loose fitting woollen jumper, this one was snugger and had a hood at the back, which fell in deep folds behind Chara's head.

"Who, who are you?" asked Chara.

Frisk said that they were Frisk.

Chara blinked in disbelief. "But, you're supposed to be so much taller!" she spluttered. "You like you're ten years old!"

Frisk frowned at that and said that they were twelve, not ten.

Chara looked at them silently for a few moments and then burst out laughing. This confused Frisk even more, because they couldn't figure out what was so funny. After Chara was finished laughing, she reached out and ruffled Frisk's hair. Frisk flinched a little at first, but once they realised what Chara was doing they relaxed. "What did you do to yourself to end up like this mirror?" asked Chara.

"End up like what?" asked a voice from back down the path.

Chara looked quickly over her shoulder and then jumped back in surprise. Frisk's mouth fell open as they saw that standing just stone's throw away, was them. A much taller, more masculine them, but it was definitely them. The other Frisk mirrored their surprise once he realised just who he was looking at.

"What, how?" he stammered.

"I, I think there's two of you," said Chara.


End file.
